z,
I'm not opposed to this war on typical liberal principles. My opposition to the war is recent (in the last couple of weeks), and it's only due to sensing that the administration thinks that rebuilding Iraq will be a walk in the park ...
I am sorry if this sounds insulting, but this is just about the lamest of the anti-war arguments.
My initial opposition to war had to do with the fact that we don't have a causus belli, cause for war, that is easily identifiable, easy to grasp. I am all for taking out Saddam. Since we have already paid the price of going to war without causus belli, now there is no reason not to go for the strategic objective to take out Saddam (having paid the price).
As far as this rebuilding nonsense, where did that come from? It has never really happened. Marshal Plan was about keeping the commies out of Western Europe, not as a consequence of the war. Are you saying that if there was no Marshal Plan, we should not have liberated Western Europe?
In case of Iraq, it makes absolutely no sense to spend the US tax money on this "rebuilding" since Iraq is sitting on a huge bank account in form of oil.
people of Iraq would more or less seamlessly form a functioning democracy themselves
Just because the absolutely most ambitions outcome - functioning democracy - may not be easily achievable, there are number of possible outcomes that are far more desirable to the current situation.
We have to basically tie the hands of the different ethnic groups in Iraq, as well as those of Turkey and Iran, and not allow them to fight each other, while we take care of the nation-building.
Suppose Iraq splits. What's so terrible about it? Despite the US protests, Soviet Union split, Yugoslavia split, some of the fragments are very successful, some less, but overall, splitting of those countries was a success. Czechoslovakia split too (without the official US opinion for or against).
Joe |
